


Oh the river, it's running free

by Chiomi



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Dehumanization, Gen, Werewolves as Slaves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-08 14:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3213230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiomi/pseuds/Chiomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alan and Stiles have been circling this conversation for months, since they’d run into each other at a werewolf’s abuse trial.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh the river, it's running free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_deep_magic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_deep_magic/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Pack Up; Don't Stray](https://archiveofourown.org/works/644874) by [the_deep_magic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_deep_magic/pseuds/the_deep_magic). 



> Thanks to T for the beta! Mind the tags.
> 
> It was exciting to be able to remix a fic I really like, so I hope this is at least interesting.

They’ve been circling this conversation for months, since they’d run into each other at a werewolf’s abuse trial. Stiles had been the responding officer in the case and Alan had been the veterinarian of record - and, later, the one who ghosted the werewolf out of the state. Alan knows perfectly well what he’s risking. Every such conversation is a risk, but this one slightly moreso, as Stiles is a police officer. Stiles can wreck Alan’s precarious position singlehandedly. On the flip side, Stiles could wreck his career by talking about this to the wrong person. Not his life - the thin blue line would stop there being even a trial, but the thin blue line does not willingly embrace subversives.

Stiles picks up a pen, twiddles it over his fingers, puts it down. He stares at it like it’s the most interesting thing in the room, and smoothes one finger down it. “Did you ever see that movie with Rudolph and all the misfit toys?”

Alan doesn’t say anything for long enough that Stiles has to look up. Alan keeps his face smooth and placid, giving away nothing, and keeps his hands moving over the keyboard, reviewing his patient appointments for the next day. All of his patient records are under the names of the owners, even though most of the patients themselves are werewolves, because in this as all things werewolves are considered subhuman. It didn’t matter that the veterinary classes on werewolves overlapped enough with human medicine that several of them were shared between the programs: if you were a werewolf, you were officially an animal all the time.

Stiles fills the silence, some kind of nervous tic. Alan’s happy to let him, because it’s not - Alan has suspicions, but inadequate certainty to risk it. “Some of the toys were abused or broken, and generally seen as not as wanted. But then there was this whole great place where they’re safe or whatever, and it’s even got dental! Like, it’s this whole haven up in the northern wilds where everyone can be all safe and happy and whatever. The toys. And there was that one who even got reunited with the family he loved and had been separated from for like half a lifetime, which was cool. Like, great movie. I cried. I mean, I was like seven, but quality movie. Quality storyline! Who doesn’t like to see people finding a place where they can be safe and have a community?”

Stiles finally notices that he’s been clicking the pen under his hand, and startles to a stop. Alan tucks away a smile.

“Sanctuary is important to all living creatures,” he says slowly and deliberately. He and Stiles have never been close, exactly. He suspects - he hopes - that Stiles is a decent person, one who believes in equality. His parents did their best to raise him right. There’s a lot of toxic nonsense in the world, though, from the laws down through the movies, and he hasn’t spent much time with Stiles since Claudia died.

Stiles stills in a way that makes him look like his father: focused, intent. “Is the sanctuary for wers real?”

Alan doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch. Stiles is taking his detective exam sometime in the next couple months, and Beacon Hills doesn’t have a whole lot of room for advancement. Alan holds his stillness long enough that Stiles breaks, nearly collapsing on the table and running a hand over his face and into his hair, spiking it up messily. “Look, I know - I know you’ve got a thing, you’re connected. And I want to know if I can help. We get wers in sometimes, and the way they look - I know how bad it has to be to show by the time we see them, and it’s _still_ gone by the time we can grab a camera to document abuse. And sometimes they’ve got pack or other reasons not to go. But could they go? Can they go? Is there somewhere for them to go? If it’s all a fairy tale, we never had this conversation, but God, dude, please just tell me.”

Alan breathes out carefully, and lets himself relax out of rigidity. “There’s a sanctuary, up north. I can’t tell you where, because I don’t even know myself. But it’s up past the Arctic Circle. And it exists.”

Stiles straightens like a pointer. “You can get wers there? Get them out?”

“In dire need, I have calls I can make. It is not something to be undertaken lightly.” Rebecca and Blake and Kenny are all tough as nails, used to both evading detection and getting through the Peace Arch despite Canada’s tight laws about the import of American weapons and animals. But tough won’t help if any of them are exposed, and might bring down others in the chain, so Stiles can never know their names, nor that he went to high school with Kenny.

“And it’s safe?”

“Yes.” He’d gotten a postcard, once, from Fairbanks. It had been couched in vacation terms and vagaries, but it had been from the werewolf he’d gotten out, signed with her loose scrawling hand and only her first name. It had told him she was safe, and happy. He’d been glad and relieved in equal measure, because while he trusted the people he knew, and trusted their judgement, he was in the dark about what happened past the Yellowhead highway. He’d sent her forth anyway, because no sentient creature, human or not, deserved to live in bondage. That she was happy, though - that was a sort of gift.

Stiles stops gnawing on his lip. “Could I help? Could I take wers there, or send them, when their situation here’s untenable and Services won’t do anything?”

Alan sighs in relief, and feels a flash of regret that Stiles’ parents aren’t alive to see the man he’s become. “If a situation arises where you think that transport away would solve a problem, you can let me know. Some of contacts are understandably skittish, and it would also protect you to have a buffer between yourself and those who would do the transportation.”

Stiles smiles and sticks the pen he’s been fiddling with back in Alan’s pen jar. “Great! Awesome. I think I could definitely make a difference.”

 


End file.
